Requiem for a Conehead

Agent Orange?

When did the now ubiquitous traffic barrels appear? And has the traffic cone industry taken a nosedive as a result? The barrels certainly have the advantage of size--you could easily keep a small child under one of these. Plus those easy to grasp handles. I can imagine it must have been tough on the back to reach down from a moving truck and grab those cones, especially on a rainy day.

For the man who has everything

You can get your own traffic barrels from, where else, Orange-Traffic-Cones.com. Check out their site for a great video showing how a barrel handles a 50-mph collision in a "memory test"(!) with a plow-equipped truck. To be clear, the truck collides with the barrel, not v.v. They run about $50 but, caveat emptor, the base is extra.

It didn't occur to me until now that Zippy the Pinhead's genesis might have had something to do with traffic cones? Must ask Bill Griffith the next time I am in the Norwich, Connecticut, area--but more on that later.

Classic 28" Cone